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Tuesday, 31 July 2012

I've been seeing lots of glitter sandwiches hitting the blogverse lately. Glitter is back with the indie polish explosion and everyone wants to wear it 101 ways.
This is a neat way to transform any glitter!

Let's look at some pictures of Lush Lacquer Pink Panther first!

This is 1 coat of Pink Panther over 2 coats of China Glaze Innocence. Innocence is a nice light, dusty pink creme that is the perfect amount of sheer to use for a glitter sandwich! (It doesn't always have to be a jelly polish!)

Pink Panther is an awesome matte glitter. It features black, pink and white hex glitters in all sizes. I especially love the giant white glitters. (See my thumb!). It is super cute. You could layer it over all sorts of colors because it has a clear base. Awesome!

And then we sandwich! This is another coat of Innocence on top to sandwich it all. It makes the manicure so delicate and pretty, but funky at the same time!

Innocence was a great base for Pink Panther. It let the glitter be the feature of the manicure ever though it was covered up again to be sandwiched.

I got so many compliments on this manicure! Lots of people thought it was one polish and wanted to know how I did it! A glitter sandwich is a great way to make anyone think you have crazy nail skills!

Have you sandwiched any of your glitters lately? I love the way it looks like all one polish!

You can purchase Lush Lacquer on their Etsy and follow them on Facebook for updates!

Monday, 30 July 2012

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Not only have I definitely dropped the 31 day challenge (oops, my bad) but I've been without inspiration as I patiently wait for my new indie polishes to come in the mail!
Well, they are finally coming in! After receiving my Lush Lacquer order, I was excited to see what was next.
Then I got my Rainbow Honey order! I saw swatches of the Equestria Collection and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. All of the polishes are inspired by different ponies from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. How cute is that?

Let's get started on some swatches!

This is one coat of Rainbow Honey The Worst Possible Thing over 2 coats of China Glaze Electric Beat. The photo is taken with flash. It is a glitter packed polish with tiny blue, purple, teal, pink, silver glitters. It also featured some flakies! Lots of glitter madness going on here!

No flash photo. The combination of all the glitters in The Worst Possible Thing gives it an overall periwinkle look. That being said, Electric Beat is the perfect underwear, since it is a periwinkle creme.
This was a lovely surprise and definitely my favorite.

This is one coat of Rainbow Honey A Little Kindness over 2 coats of China Glaze Innocence. It is pinkish shimmer base with small, medium and large gold and pink glitters throughout. This is so beautiful. I love a pink and gold combination.

A photo sans flash. I am usually not a fan of shimmery bases, but this sold me! I can't wait to try this over lots of colors.

Last but not least, the party that is Rainbow Honey Pinkie Promise! This is one coat over 2 coats of Joe Fresh Bloom. It has a pink/yellow duochrome shimmer base with pink, blue and gold glitter. It features lots of different sizes of glitter including large, medium and small hex glitters and bar glitters as well.

No flash photo. The duochrome shimmer base is the coolest thing about this polish. Let alone the chunky glitter which made me so excited. The shimmer base shows up mostly pink on it's own and over light colors but it transforms entirely over black. I can't wait to show you guys in the future!

Now i wish I didn't get mini's of these beauties!
Next on my list, 20% Cooler and Koi Pond! Rainbow Honey makes beautiful polishes!

You can purchase Rainbow Honey Polishes on her main website here and keep up with the updates on Facebook.

Monday, 23 July 2012

For this post I took a little break from my challenge because I couldn't resist trying out more of my Lush Lacquers!

This is Lush Lacquer Snap Crackle Pop! Obviously inspired by Rice Krispies, it is a blue jelly with blue, red and white hex & bar glitters.
I'm usually not a fan of bar glitters. No matter what I do, I can't get them to lay flat. The bar gliters in Snap Crackle Pop were actually pretty well behaved! I picked a few off that were curling up but other than that, they laid right against my nail.

I love the red/white/blue color combo. I'm not American, but I like that it's so festive! I wish I had this on the Fourth of July! This is 1 coat of Snap Crackle Pop over 2 coats of Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!. It's the perfect underwear, it's matches the blue jelly base perfectly.

Snap Crackle Pop has an awesome formula. This one coat covered this densely and I had minimal trouble over placement. I just dabbed the brush a little in bald spots and I was good to go!

I'm still wearing this mani right now. It's so much fun! I don't want to take it off!

You can purchase Lush Lacquer on Etsy in full size bottles or mini bottles like I have here. You can also visit them on Facebook!

Friday, 20 July 2012

I know this is a little late, but I wanted to do a giveaway for a while. Especially because I've hit 4500 followers on tumblr as well! So I'd like to celebrate my awesome followers with a little giveaway!

The giveaway is open for two weeks, until August 3rd, 2012. I will be picking a winner on the following Saturday or Sunday and mailing out the prize the following week.

The prizes aren't huge, but the main reason is I'd love to share some of my favorite things! Leopard print, shiny things, glitter polish and some awesome staple colors.

The polishes consist of two minis, OPIAlpine Snow and OPI Color So Hot It Berns. I also have two full sizes up for grabs! A scented Revlon polish called Grape Icy and Kleancolor Sugar Coat which is an iridescent chunky glitter polish that looks more like snow falling than sugar coating to me.

A rhinestone wheel! Who doesn't like glittery, shiny things? These rhinestones are the perfect size to add some glitz without having your gems catch on everything. And trust me, I know how it feels to have your nails catch on everything. I'm a hairstylist. Nothing like catching an unsuitable nail deco on some hair.

Last but definitely not least, a set of nails handpainted by me! Leopard print is always in, and these two colors are perfect for summer. Show off your fingers daily or keep them for a special occasion!

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Oh am I ever excited to show you guys today's mani. I doubled over in excitement when I got some precious nail mail from Lush Lacquer! I finally jumped aboard the indie train and Lush Lacquer was my first indie purchase.

Beware, this post is a little picture heavy!
Anyway, let's get down to business.

Here is my little set of goodies! All of these polishes are gorgeous. I am a huge fan of glitter, so I couldn't wait to receive these polishes. Above all, Lush Lacquer was awesome with communicating to their customer about the time frame you should expect. They left a note on my purchase saying they'd need an extra 2 weeks to process my order due to such a high volume of orders. I definitely appreciated the notification.
I finally got these about a month later and it was WELL worth the wait. I
mean, look at them! Gorgeous, gorgeous glitter bombs. I will for sure
be purchasing from Lush Lacquer again. Thanks Karin & Lexi for your
wonderful polishes!

So of course, I couldn't wait to see what they looked like on the nail. From left to right we have Mr. Bubble (2 coats & 1 coat), Pink Panther (2 coats & 1 coat), Snap Crackle Pop (2 coats & 1 coat) and Salt N Peppa (2 coats & 1 coat).
Beautiful, dense glitter madness. I was about to faint, I was so excited.

So I obviously wanted to incorporate one of these bad boys into my challenge mani. But let's start off with my base polish. This is the lovely OPI Birthday Babe. It is a nice frosty silver that has the awesome, dependably smooth application OPI is known for. This is my favorite silver I own.

This is two coats of Birthday Babe. No streaking or drag with this polish. Also, unlike most frostier polishes, you don't see any brush strokes with this beauty. A+ rating from me!

Then I topped it off with Lush Lacquer Mr. Bubble! This is one coat of this awesome matte glitter. It applied pretty evenly. I didn't have to poke any glitters around to get the placement right. I just did a little dab here and there to fill in any bald spots afterward.

Mr. Bubble is made up of micro, small, medium and large hex glitters in pink, blue and white. It is a party in a bottle. It reminds me of confetti or something I would wear to a baby shower. Super adorable. I can't wait to try this over some different colors.

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

This manicure was a lot of fun. You have so many options when it comes to black and white. So I didn't want to be lazy and use glitter or stamping. I wanted to do something fun, but simple.
Here's what I came up with!

A funky polka dot mani! I used Zoya Snow White for the base. This was 2 coats of the white creme polish. The application is alright, it's a little on the thick side, but then again my bottle is pretty old. It could just be time for a new one. I like Snow White because it goes on creamy, not like white out.

I wanted to add a little something, something to the dots, so I did a few random colored ones. The colors used were China Glaze Flying Dragon (Pictured. You can even see the blue glitters in the bottle shot, how cool!), China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!.

It's hard to tell Turned Up Turquoise apart from Blue Me Away in these photos. My camera flash definitely brutalized that a little bit. I saw a post about how Kayla from Nails By Kayla Shevonne has a little photography studio she DIY'd! I think I'm going to make one of those so I can take more color accurate photos sans flash. You can see her post here.

Overall I think this was a fun way to do black and white. What do you think? :)

Friday, 13 July 2012

At first when I saw violet all I thought was that I couldn't just turn to my go-to purple (OPI Do You Lilac It? The best light purple. Ever.) I don't have a lot of purple. I like it, but lately there hasn't been any new ones to catch my eye lately.

Then I remembered how fast this beauty caught my eye when I first saw it...

This is OPI DS Extravagance. It is part of their Designer Series Collection. It is a beautiful magenta-purple cross with lots of shimmer holo particles that shine like a diamond. I love this polish. I felt like I had little violet gems on my fingers.

This is 2 coats of Extravagance. It applies like butter. No streaks, no drag. It dries fast so you don't have to wait too long between coats. It is my dream polish. This is a must have for anyone's collection. OPI's prowide brush makes it that much easier to apply as well.

Then I did a glitter accent finger with a blue & purple glitter from Claire's Precious Metals collection. It's hard to see the purple glitters because they were exactly the same color as the polish. It gave it a really cool effect in person, though.
I tried taking a no flash picture to show the purple glitters better but no dice. Pretty though, right?

This is the last day of the colors of the rainbow, tomorrow is black and white! I'm very excited for that challenge, gives me a little more creativity!

Thursday, 12 July 2012

So, as you can see, I am definitely not doing these every day. I'm definitely trying to. I've been better at actually painting them every day than posting them!
This day I was especially excited, because my new Bundle Monster set came in the mail! All of the designs are so adorable. I wanted to use all of them. So hard to decide which to use first.

Well, anyway. Here's day 5, blue nails :)

This is Sally HansenInstadri Blue Streak. It's a gorgeous sky blue shimmer polish. It has also a frosty finish as well as a nice shimmer. The color is just, oh my god. I can't even. For all you nail art addicts on a budget, Instadri polishes are amazing for the price. This is two coats. It applies evenly and doesn't streak too much.

I then sponged my tips with China Glaze Knotty from the Anchors Away Collection. It's hard to see in this photo, the flash did not agree with me here. It's a pretty subtle effect, Knotty isn't super shear but it is shear enough just to add a little sparkle.

Here is a more accurate, no-flash photo, to show the difference of colors. I really liked how shiny and shimmery this was. I typically like cremes the best and avoid shimmers and shiny finishes other than glitter, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I do!

I then stamped a design from my new Bundle Monster plates! This is an image from BM-314 stamped with Kleancolor Black. I LOVE this design. It was so fancy and funky at the same time. I was really happy with the way this image stamped too. Super clean, and it didn't smudge at all.

Have any of you purchased the new Bundle Monster plates? How did you like them?
I have to say, it was worth every penny!

Monday, 9 July 2012

So I'm finally back on track now with the challenge. I hope you guys enjoyed the yellow mani I enjoyed so much. It was hard to take off (both emotionally and physically, darn glitter!) but I am excited to show you the next mani!

This is China Glaze Entourage from the Kicks collection. It's a lime or a grass green shimmer that has a relatively fuss free application.

It is a little streaky when applying. If i didn't get it on fast enough, I would get bald spots. It could be because of the heat or something (It's 37°C here! 98°F for all you Americans. Pretty hot!), but i'm not too sure how that works. This is two thick coats of Entourage. It probably would've been better with 3 thinner coats, but because I had planned to do stamping over it, I didn't mind.

Here is the fun stamping I did! I just got the new black polish I purchased for stamping in the mail today and had to try it out. It's Kleancolor Black stamped with BM-211. I love this image. The combination is sorta reptilian, don't you think?

Now this polish was pretty good to stamp with. I've been having some issues finding a good black that's not Konad, because I like to budget my polish purchases.
It wasn't perfect, I had to fix a few fuzzy spots. I think the trick with this one is to push a little harder when stamping, but I'll have to play around with it!

I may be a day late, but this kinda goes along with Stamping Sundays! It doesn't look like they did a theme over there this week, but it's fun anyways. Head over to Adventures In Stamping to join!

I have two reasons for postponing this challenge. One, it was a very busy weekend for me. I did hair for a wedding, went out for a friend's birthday and went floating down a river. Two, I loved it so much, I couldn't justify taking it off!

This is OPI The It Color. I used it a couple of weeks ago in this mani and as I said then, it's the perfect yellow for pale, pink me. It's a nice bright, golden yellow creme. This is 3 thin coats. You could get away with 2 thicker coats as well.

See how nice this color makes my skin tone look? The perfect peach. I love it.

Like always, I wanted to add a little something to this mani. This is a no name glitter from Claire's glitter collection called Precious Metals. They are all little mini 7.5ml bottles.

This is one coat plus a little dabbing here and there to fill in bald spots. It covers really well! I love to see a dense glitter. It was pretty much a no fuss experience.

I just had to take this shot. It matched the bottle so well! I can never get over when stuff matches, so here is a cute shot with one of my favorite flavors of vitamin water (yum, yum!).

Well, looks like it's time to take this mani off. It's now dull from layers of hairspray, a dirty river run and whatever else i got my hands into this weekend. Sigh.

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Orange is definitely not my favorite nail color. I've got lots of pinky oranges and reddish oranges but not a lot of true oranges. This is an exception. The brightest neon you've ever seen. I think you could spot my nails from a mile away.

This is Color Club You Got Soul-ar. It's a bright neon orange with holo glitter suspended in the polish. It's from the Starry Temptress Collection.

I did a little accent nail with a white nail art pen from eBay, because accent nails are the funnest, right? I just drew little hearts with the pen. Cute, fun & summery.

It was hard to capture the true color of this one on camera, because it's so bright! It freaked out my camera when I used the flash.

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

I know I had already started another challenge, but it was sadly uninspiring for me. I kept wanting to skip days and I felt unmotivated. I was looking for something a little different but then I remembered this challenge I did around this time last year. Now that I have a little more experience and creativity, I think it will be twice as fun!

Lots of different options for every day. That's what attracted me! So here is Day One: Red Nails.

Red nails are an obvious classic. Red looks good with just about any color (except green, I'll leave that combo for Christmas), so it's always been a go to of mine when I can't settle on a color.
This is Zoya Maura. This is one of the first polishes I added to my collection and I've always loved it. The best way to describe it is a neon red creme. It's a super bright red leaning a tiny bit on the orange-y side.

Of course I wasn't just going to leave this mani all red! My nails have been bare all weekend. I was at the music festival Boonstock here in Canada, so I took all my polish off my nails before hand.
The yellow flowers are done with China Glaze Solar Power and a dotting tool. I then did little white dots with a nail art pen from eBay.

Someone said this reminds them of Spongebob! It kinda does look like the flowers, doesn't it? I thought it was a cute way to do a summery, happy mani. This was really simple to do, because the yellow is opaque enough that you don't have to keep going over the flowers.

Do this challenge with me! Drop a link i the comments and I'll be sure to check out how your challenge is coming along :)

About Me

I am a hair stylist & manicurist from Edmonton, Alberta with a die hard obsession for the beauty industry, especially nail art. I love discovering new designs, techniques and polishes. It's one of my favorite creative outlets and I love sharing it with all my friends, family and fans ♥